(July 1,
2010) All coaches fall somewhere on a
coaching tree,
similar to a family tree, except that where the latter shows a person's family
heritage, a coaching tree displays the working and mentoring relationships among
a network of coaches.
Rob Haworth, co-author of What Great
Coaches Do Differently and a vice-president of the
National Association of Intercollegiate
Athletics (NAIA), prominently places English teacher and athletic coach John
Wooden, who passed away in June at the age of 99, on his own coaching tree. One
of the most important lessons the influential Wooden taught Haworth involved
character building, not how to win the next NCAA national title, though Wooden
accomplished that feat ten times in his coaching career.
Haworth describes the lessons he took away from having spent two days with
Wooden in 2007. "Instead of talking about full court zone defense, we talked
about the importance of family, education, and being a good role model."
(June 30, 2010) In a rave
review of
Teaching Grammar: What Really Works, Marti Schwartz, creator of
NETWorking (Novice and Experienced Teachers Working Together) at Brown
University, summarizes the book’s core strategies for incorporating grammar
learning into writing instruction. "This is smart teaching!" says Schwartz,
explaining that concepts which teachers have found tedious to learn and teach in
the past are now made crystal clear, fun, and productive, for both themselves
and their students.
"What Benjamin and Berger have done is made grammar accessible through some very
interesting lessons, detailed explanations, and handy downloads...I’m confident
in saying the book will be of interest to ELA and literacy teachers across many
grades, from upper elementary through high school."
(May 22, 2010) The leadership lessons
kids learn on the field may also apply to their experiences off of it. Rob
Haworth, co-author of the upcoming book,
What Great Coaches Do Differently with Todd Whitaker, tells the
The Examiner, “"Students who participate in athletics are exposed to
leadership role models (i.e. coaches) and often are required to exercise some
degree of leadership with their peers (i.e. team captains).”
A sample of some of the lessons former student athletes have taken away from
their participation in sports:
· "Everyone contributes and everyone matters."
· "There is a time to lead and a time to follow."
· "There is no bench or second string. Everyone needs to perform and be
prepared."
(May 20, 2010) On May 20, the
Visual Thesaurus spoke with
Active Literacy Across the Curriculum author
Heidi Hayes Jacobs about the tendency of many teachers to overlook vocabulary instruction within content areas. She also
talked about the state of intellectualism in the U.S. and its effects on education. Jacobs shared intriguing ideas about the existence of a “classroom caste system” based on social and academic ability, and how the system can exacerbate a student’s feelings of inferiority.
"Some people call it 'homogeneous grouping.' I call it a caste system because [teachers] start to play out the roles and the school starts to support those roles, and there's a divisiveness. There's enough social consciousness among kids where they're already in cliques and various sub-groups and they have their own little cultures. A teacher needs to be very careful not to unwittingly feed into that."
In an
earlier piece published May 6, also by the Visual Thesaurus, Jacobs expands on her belief that teachers of vocabulary must encourage students to say and use new words if they want to ensure their meanings are fully absorbed.
Said Jacobs, "If 'content teachers' never venture to create activities that compel students to use new words — the same words that appear in their textbooks and come out of their teachers' mouths — one subtext of the curriculum will be that textbook writers, standardized test makers, and teachers have their own set of vocabulary while students are resigned to a more limited set of words."
(May 12, 2010) In a
guest column in the May issue of
The School Administrator, Chris Hitch, co-author of
Executive Skills for Busy School Leaders, describes a particularly busy
week in his life as a university administrator. One morning, after a string of
meetings back to back, Hitch begins to worry that his schedule has become too
frenzied for him to perform his job well. He decides to follow three basic steps
for staying on track the next week. The first:
“Make a personal pre-meeting appointment. Make an appointment with myself
to prep before going into each ‘big issue’ meeting next week. I’m holding that
appointment as important as an appointment with another person.”
(May 6, 2010) Pamela S. Salazar, author
of
High-Impact Leadership for High-Impact Schools published by Eye On
Education,
testified before congress on Tuesday, May 4th in support of National Board
Certification for Principals, a proposal for America’s first national
certification for successful, experienced principals, assistant principals, and
teacher leaders.
The hearing was titled "Supporting America’s Educators: The Importance of
Quality Teachers and Leaders.”
National Board Certification for Principals would "define and validate the
requirements," Salazar said, that determine an "accomplished, effective, and
results-driven principal.”
She emphasized that students and teachers require the guidance of effective
educational leadership, and ended on the following note: "It is essential that
we attract, develop, and retain the best and brightest educational leaders…to
prepare students for the expectations of a global economy."
Click here for detailed information on the hearing from the U.S. House
Education and Labor Committee's Web site, including a list of witnesses and an
archived
webcast of the hearing.
(May 5, 2010) In the Spring 2010 issue
of
The AdvancED Source, Sandra Harris, co-author of
Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools, describes how BRAVO
Educators improve student learning: by building relationships, upholding high
standards, and personalizing learning environments so that students feel
empowered to make choices that showcase their individual abilities. Harris also
demonstrates what she calls “culturally responsive teaching” in which educators
“acknowledge and affirm the positive presence of cultural diversity.”
Harris stresses three important beliefs of BRAVO Educators:
(May 1, 2010)
Among the three levels of change that happen within a school (procedural,
structural, and cultural), cultural change represents a unique challenge that
directly affects how schools implement the other two types of change.
In the
current issue of TEPSA’s (Texas
Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association) Instructional Leader
newsletter, Todd Whitaker, author of
Leading School Change, differentiates between the three levels of change
and highlights the specific importance of cultural change: getting students and
staff on board, and working collectively, “soul and spirit”, toward a goal.
“Yes, cultural change is difficult,” Whitaker writes. “It often triggers
resistance. It may be flat-out scary, precisely because of the extra work.
Getting anyone, much less everyone, to change their approach to teaching and
learning is a daunting task, but it can be done.”
(April 2, 2010)
Rob Haworth, a vice-president of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and co-author of What Great
Coaches Do Differently, wrote a column in the April issue of
Kansas City Sports & Fitness magazine. In “A Message to Youth Sports Coaches,” he discusses the value of a social contract between athletes and coaches, one centered on respect. When coaches respect their teams, athletes are more likely to perform well and stay loyal to them.
“The coach will coach and the athlete will learn and execute,” Haworth wrote. “Nothing is signed. It is simply understood.”
Breaux explains why providing feedback to students in a timely manner is
beneficial to students and educators alike. “The longer between the test date
and the return of the test to students, the more you risk their detachment from
the material,” Breaux writes.
(March 31, 2010) In the March issue of
SEEN (SouthEast Education Network), Franklin Schargel writes that students must receive a globally competitive education in order to thrive in the current marketplace.
“The United States can only thrive in the 21st century if all the graduates of our public schools succeed and make this country into a high-performing global nation,” Schargel writes.
(March 2, 2010)
In the March/April 2010 issue of Principal
magazine, Frank Buck discusses principal blogs as an effective tool for
communicating with staff. In the column, “Improve Communication One Blog at a
Time,” Buck also offers principals tips on how to start their own blogs.
Buck, author of the new book Organization
Made Easy! Tools for Today’s Teachers, cites the success of blogging in
his own district, emphasizing the practice as a good way to keep teachers up to
date. “After starting blogs at my former school, within two years the central
office and every school in the district had created its own. Individual teachers
and school organizations began to create blogs to communicate with parents and
supporters.”
(February 16, 2010)
Dr. Kathleen A. Foord and Dr. Jean M. Haar, authors of Professional
Learning Communities: An Implementation Guide and Toolkit, work as professors and administrators at the Minnesota State University - Mankato. Foord and Haar have each recorded a free webinar for the university’s College of Education. These webinars were originally presented live with listener participation, and are now available free as recorded sessions.
Haar, the Director of the Center for Engaged Leadership at the university,
presented a webinar titled “Facing Current Challenges: Leadership Matters.” This
webinar focuses on the kind of leadership necessary for today’s school systems.
The webinar also addresses the efforts of the Department of Educational
Leadership at Minnesota State to improve school leadership. Watch this webinar
here: http://ed.mnsu.edu/webinars.html.
Foord, the Chair of Educational Studies for K-12 and Secondary Programs, led a webinar titled “Developing and Sustaining Professional Learning Communities.” Foord addresses how to start and sustain effective professional learning communities (PLC). She also provides an overview of PLCs
including the necessary components, identified roles, and how to evaluate
program effectiveness. Watch this webinar here:
http://ed.mnsu.edu/webinars.html.
(February 11, 2010) The Journal of Educational Administration (JEA) reviewed four Eye On Education titles in 2009. You can read
the reviews here and
here.
The reviewer, John Sonje Berg of Henry T. Gage Middle School, praised Professional Learning Communities: An Implementation Guide and Toolkit by Kathleen A. Foord and Jean M. Haar for being “rich in research and creativity.” Berg said “Foord and Haar do an excellent job of creating a very useable guide and toolkit to help educators at all levels.”
In the same issue, Lilia E. Sarmiento of California State University at Dominguez Hills said
Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word by Barbara Blackburn “…offers concrete and practical ways to raise the rigor in curriculum and instruction…The questions that are posed will cause teachers, school administrators, and other instructional personnel to take an authentic look at current practices.”
The 4
CORE Factors for School Success by Todd Whitaker and Jeffrey Zoul was also reviewed by the JEA in 2009. The review praised the book as being easy to read. Thomas Russell, the reviewer, also describes the title as an “engaging book that revisits the essence of practical teaching and what is foundational to administrators.”
“As a teacher, it is more important to focus on being an empathetic (rather than
sympathetic) instructor and mentor for your students,” Moore writes. “An
empathetic teacher injects calm into the situation…[The student] feels safe
sharing his concerns.”
Click here to read the article (Page 3, top left).
Victoria Bernhardt, author of several bestselling books and resources published by Eye On Education, is a nationally renowned speaker on the topic of using data to improve schools. In the following video clips, she outlines why data are important for increasing student achievement, what data must be collected, and how to use data to improve learning in a relatively short time.
Here is Bernhardt’s full 90-minute presentation at the November 2009 EQAO (Educational Quality and Accountability Office) Symposium, in which she offered case studies of schools that gathered data and used it to turn their learning rates around – in every grade level, subject area, and student group – in as few as one to three years.
In an interview with the Ottawa Region MISA (Municipal Information Systems Association) Professional Network, Bernhardt discussed the principal’s role, the specific types of data that are vital to a successful data-gathering process, and what it means for teachers to be data literate.
(February 1, 2010) In the February issue of
Principal Leadership, the NASSP magazine for school leaders, Ronald
Williamson and Barbara Blackburn identify behaviors of successful advocates for
school change.
In the
article, the authors of
Rigorous
Schools and Classrooms: Leading the Way provide an overview of three
specific tools to inspire change: the one-page fact sheet, the elevator talk,
and to-the-point interview responses. They write, “To be a successful advocate,
you must develop strategies to share your message and mobilize others to support
your vision. [These tools] can assist you in your advocacy efforts.”
